During his first presidential run, Barack Obama repeatedly promised
to roll back the imperial presidency that had grown inexorably over
the past half century. Then he was elected. Since 2009 Obama has
claimed unprecedented power for himself while advancing a novel
argument about his duty as president to ignore the separation of
powers and act unilaterally to overcome congressional gridlock. “We
can’t wait,” has been his refrain — though he has, of course,
been unable to cite a “presidential power when Congress won’t act”
clause in the Constitution in defense of his actions. In Lawless, George Mason University law
professor David Bernstein takes readers on a whirlwind tour through
the Obama administration’s bureaucratic overreaching; dubious
assertion of executive authority over both foreign and domestic
policy; unilateral changes, modifications, and delays to existing
law; and implausible interpretations of constitutional law. Obama’s
defenders, however, claim that he has actually been restrained
compared to his predecessors and that claims of rampant illegality
amount to not much more than partisan sniping. Who’s right? To help
us untangle the legal web, the author of this provocative new book
will be joined by Ilya Shapiro and Simon Lazarus.